42. Chapter Forty-Two
~Felix~
Gradually, the spinning in my head slowed, and I forced my eyes open against the pink-tinged light to get a look at my surroundings.
Tarron stood in front of me, dressed in fine, elegant clothes, looking regal and unnervingly beautiful, his fae features finely etched in perfect proportions. I wouldn’t have blamed Evalina if she found him attractive, but she’d made it clear she didn’t. In fact, after learning about the way he treated her, first bullying her and later trying to force her to be his mistress, it took all my self-control not to lunge at him on sight.
The only reason I forced myself to remain still was the fact that I was severely outnumbered. Even if I shifted back to my wolf, armed men lined the walls of the large, square room we were in, their sharp eyes tracking my every move. No furniture filled the space, nothing to indicate anyone lived there. It felt more like the training rooms our men used, some kind of barracks, and the presence of the armed men backed up that theory.
Two guards, bulkier than the lean prince, stood in front of a tall wooden door on one side of the room. On the other side, streams of light filtered through the windows, casting pink streaks across the polished floor.
My chances didn’t look good if I attacked the prince. There would be nowhere to run afterwards. A week ago, I might have tried anyway, but now, my safety meant more to me.
It meant getting back to Evalina, and I would do whatever it took for that to happen.
“What the hell do you want with me?” I growled at Tarron, letting my wolf come right to the surface so that my voice rumbled with Kai’s power as well as my own.
A few of the men at the side of the room shuffled nervously.
Tarron didn’t even glance my way, his attention fixed on the elf as if I were beneath notice. “You’ll find your payment with my clerk in the residence. He’s expecting you.”
That supported my theory that we were not in the official residence at the moment. Though it still didn’t tell me exactly where we were, the more information I could gather about my situation, the better.
The elf bristled at the dismissal in Tarron’s tone. “I won’t surrender the werewolf to you until I receive what you promised. You will deliver it to me personally.”
My ears pricked at the edge of frustration in the elf’s voice. A crack in their alliance, perhaps? Sowing discord between them didn’t seem likely to hurt my cause, so I inserted myself into the conversation. “Tough to find good mercenaries these days, isn’t it?” I shot Tarron a smirk, gesturing towards the elf with mock disappointment.
As I hoped, the elf stiffened even more. “I am not a mercenary.”
“No? You brought me here and he’s giving you a payment in return. Sounds pretty mercenary to me.”
“Stay out of this,” Tarron instructed with a glare in my direction. “It doesn’t concern you.”
“It concerns me a great deal if I’m the subject of the transaction between you. What’s the going rate for my capture? If I escape from you again and turn myself back in, can I collect it?”
“I doubt you’d be interested in this type of payment,” Tarron sneered.
“I don’t have all day,” the elf next to me snapped at him. “The payment, Your Highness, or I take this man back where I found him.”
That works for me, Kai grumbled in my head.
“Is it clothes?” I asked before Tarron could say anything. “I could really use some clothes right about now.”
I gestured down at my naked body while a few of the men by the wall tried not to snicker.
“Or maybe it’s pullaberries? I’ve heard they’re rather good. I’d like to take some back with me.”
“Someone shut him up,” Tarron ordered his men in exasperation. “And bring the clerk to me, though it would be faster if you went to him yourself.”
He addressed those last words to the elf next to me, and I leaned over to speak to him in a stage whisper, loud enough for Tarron to hear. “Who does he think he is, speaking to you that way? He really does see you as the help.”
“Shut him up now !” Tarron bellowed in frustration, and four men quickly approached me, producing an item whose dull gleam made my stomach sink.
Silver chains. Fuck.
Evalina told me silver wasn’t common in her world, but Tarron had obviously found a stash of it somewhere. If they got those chains on me, my chances of getting free by myself would fall dramatically, so if I wanted to make a move, I would have to do it before that silver got anywhere near me.
“Consider whether working with this jackass is really worth it,” I said in parting to the elf before shifting into my wolf form and bolting out of the way of the chains. Tarron cowered behind his guards, immediately putting several bodies between me and himself, but he wasn’t my target. As much as I wanted to take him on, escape mattered more.
Shouts echoed off the stone walls as I darted towards the door in an attempt to draw more of the guards in that direction. It worked; they all ran to block off my exit from the room, leaving the windows unguarded.
The impact would be brutal but I didn’t see any other choice. With a howl, I changed course and ran towards the window, leaping towards it with as much force as I could, claws out to help shatter the glass.
Except the windows weren’t made of glass.
The unyielding surface, slightly flexible but not breakable, threw me back, slamming me to the floor with a jarring thud. The prince’s soldiers rushed to surround me, shouting orders to each other.
Get up, I urged Kai, but he couldn’t move fast enough. Silver chains wrapped around our ankles, a searing pain biting into our skin and sapping our strength in seconds.
A moment later, Tarron’s smug face appeared over me again. “If you’re quite finished embarrassing yourself, my men will take you to your new cell. I promise that you won’t be breaking out of this one.”
The growl I tried to give him didn’t sound much stronger than a dog’s under the silver’s influence.
I should have ripped his throat out when I had the chance.
With all my remaining strength, I shifted back to my human form and gasped out the question he still hadn’t answered. “What do you… want… with me?”
Tarron’s smile turned even more sinister as he bent down over me. “Evalina’s the one I want,” he hissed, his breath hot and moist against my ear. “And with you as my bait, I finally have something she can’t refuse.”